Exciting News!

Back in June I had a post about a Holiday Inn ripping us off, charging us for a 2 night stay when we would never be there and I canceled a week in advance. I was very upset about this. $227 was not change and Holiday Inn would not taken it off our card, wouldn't charge us just a fee for canceling or use it towards another hotel somewhere else. So I called our credit card and told them about it, they sent out dispute papers and I filled them out, sent them back in and the waiting started. Would the dispute end in our favor or theirs?

Well, last night I was checking our voice mail and there was a message from our credit card company saying we WON!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't tell you the relief and excitement from listening to that! I had to play it again I was sooooo excited. Megan kept asking why is that exciting?

We still will probably try and stay away from Holiday Inns and I will be soooo careful in how I reserve a room at all hotels, but now I can rest easy knowing we (or my brother-in-law) won't be paying for a room we never stayed in!

Enjoying summer!

Nothing much has been going on in our house lately. Just trying to enjoy the last of summer break before Megan goes back to school, 1st grade!!!, and Joseph goes to preschool 2 weeks following that. So here are just a few cute, adorable pictures of the kids the last few days.



Sarah loves hats!



Megan all dressed up, she is ready for baseball and winter!


Joseph saying "cheeeeese"
It was a Beautiful night! perfect weather




Joseph blowing bubbles and Megan in the background playing wiffle ball with her daddy! She was hitting pretty far!




I love this picture! Sarah had dumped bubbles on a rubbermaid outside and, as she called it, was "getting soapy" and had so much fun. This is the face she makes when I tell her to look at me and listen. Soooo serious.


More bubbles



Hitting some wiffle balls




And finally, I LOVE this one. I think this is the first picture I have of all 3 of them where they are all smiling and Sarah is not crying for the camera! Love it!

Why I wish I were a child again

There are a few reasons that I wish I could be a child again.

1. I wish I had no worries.
I wish my biggest worry of the day was where I put my favorite stuffed animal or car. Or what I wanted to do today, Play or Play some more, then maybe take a nap.

2. I wish I could play and play.
Playing is much more fun than laundry, doing the dishes, cleaning cat puke up off the floor (yes we have 4 cats), changing dirty diapers, cleaning bathrooms, dusting, vacuuming, making breakfast, lunch, and dinner, with snacks in between, picking up toys, cleaning bathrooms (I know I already said this one but it needs said again), and all the other wonderful duties of motherhood and adulthood.

3. I wish I had all the energy they do.
I think we have all said "if I had half the energy as that child....". This statement is sooo true. If I did have their energy I would be able to get all the above listed duties done in one day instead of ....(tried to think of a time period, but honestly these are never ending, do over and over again things)

4. The biggest reason is that I wish I could sleep like they do!
I wish I could have that deep, deep sleep back! Since having kids, sleep depends on them. If they are sick are they going to wake up, if they are infants, you're doing feedings, if they have nightmares are they going to wake you up, and mostly if there is a storm are they going to come bursting into your room and ready to jump under the covers with you and hide. Megan gets up 9 out of 10 times, but Sarah and Joseph are never aware of what is going on.

I grew up in Sandy, Utah, we didn't have storms like they have here. I remember 1 storm vividly in Utah when I was growing up and that was because a neighbors horse got out and it was running scared in our yard and they were trying to catch it and put it back in their barn. Very exciting!

The storms here are vicious. That is my word for them: vicious. I lay in bed last night, half awake half asleep, you know what I mean. And I am hearing thunder, almost constant (you know what I mean if you live here), and I was half thinking (cause I was half awake) "when is the rain going to start". It is inevitable, when it storms at night... it STORMS. So after a little while it started to POUR then it turned to hail, and Megan (she is scared of thunder), comes running in and jumps up on the bed with us. She says it is to loud in her room (really it is Joseph's room, but they sleep together, he has our old queen sized mattress) So I am heading Megan back to her bed, I will not let our kids sleep with us, not an option! The only time that is allowed is when Brent or I are up and they can lay on our side of the bed and go back to sleep, other than this, they think are bed is for playing on. (grateful they don't think that of their beds)

Anyway, so after Megan and I go downstairs to unplug the computer and check the back door to make sure it isn't leaking (because as a responsible adult I have to think of these things) And Megan thinks it is scary because I don't turn on the lights, which I don't have to because with constant thunder, that means constant lightning so it was pretty light, almost like someone playing with a light switch on/off, on/off....I take her back to bed and the hail was hitting the house just right and it sounded like someone was hitting their window with rocks, left and right. I told her it will pass and won't last long, which it didn't.

So she quickly goes back to sleep, which brings me to another wish... I wish I could fall asleep so easily and not lay in bed and think of all the things I have to do this week and then my final thought....what I am going to post about next time....... :)

Memories.....

Sorry, this is kind of a modge podge of memories. Last Saturday we watched home videos of Megan when she was little and I went through and viewed videos of the other two. (I didn't know what was on what tape and needed to label them) It was so fun watching the videos! It is just so hard to believe life goes on and so quickly from the time we had Megan.

So then on Tuesday I got a call from a childhood/teen years friend, I haven't seen for a long time, she was in town and I was able to see her. So here are some pictures of memories of the kids and me and my friends.

The pictures with Meg in front of our house was 2 summers ago right after we had our yard landscaped. The rose bushes were tiny and at one point I thought one of them wouldn't make it but here they are today....

As you can see they are Much bigger. I am in desperate need of cutting them down, but they are so beautiful!

Sarah was on the porch crying because, surprise, surprise, she wanted the camera!

This is a picture of me and my friend that was in town, right before I got married. She goes by Sica now but to me she will always be Jessi...ca! :)
The second one is me and all my friends in Utah after I had Joseph. going from the left is Stefan, Ashley, Anna, Brooke, Me and Jessi and some of us with our babies!

These pictures are of my babies! the top one is Megan, on the bottom is Sarah and Joseph. Don't they all look alike!

These are all pictures of the kids when they are around Sarah's age now, 1 1/2 years old.

And these are just some favorites!

Organized!!!!!!!!!

A little while ago, I posted a picture of our messy, unorganized mess of toys. I was ready to throw them ALL out. The kids were spreading toys ALL over the house. When they play with toys they like to play with many different toys together at once.
As you can see we did not have a good system for the toys. Plus, we have acquired all these toys for the past 7 years and we haven't gotten rid of any since then.
So I had in my head how I wanted it done and I was dreading it. So yesterday I finally did it, I went through the toys.
This process included pulling all the toys out of 3 kids' bedrooms, under beds, couches, closets, everywhere. We put them all in the family room and organized them into groups. Cars, stuffed animals, "pretty things", balls, blocks, baby toys, etc, etc. Our long couch was FULL of stuffed animals and piles were everywhere. The family room was pretty full of toys.
Once that was done, we built new shelves, then I went through each pile decided what to keep, what to get rid of, then filled the baskets and a few rubbermaid totes, 1 for each bedroom and we had done it. See for yourself the finished product!

This is before, what a mess!!!




And this is after!!!! This is the same area, just more organized.



So I am VERY happy and the kids are too.
I have to give a VERY BIG GIGANTIC THANK YOU to Tabby and Heather who helped!!!

It seems like I haven't posted a picture lately, so here is one of my favorites of the kids when we went to Mt. Rushmore.

Ouch.

I rode my bike today for the first time in about 13 years. Long time I know. It is true, you never forget how to ride a bike, but I did forget how uncomfortable bike seats are! Seriously, how can anyone enjoy riding a bike when the seats hurt so darn bad! It was a good ride, but my bottom is paying for it today. Who knows maybe if I keep riding I will get use to it, or maybe it will get worse?! Someone seriously needs to reinvent bike seats!